In recent years, environmental concerns have begun to mount about the volume of electronic waste (e-waste) plastic making its way into landfills. These concerns have been exacerbated by the increasing proliferation of computers, cellular telephones and other electronic devices that generate significant volumes of e-waste.
Many plastic products are currently recycled, although often on a smaller than desirable small scale. One of the difficulties in recycling e-waste plastic materials is that it is typically difficult to obtain large quantities of the same types of plastic materials. Moreover, many recycling collection processes generally lump all plastic parts or products together, thereby preventing easy separation of the different types of plastics.
Some attempts have been made to address the foregoing issues. For example, one recycling trend, initially implemented in Europe, is to require the manufacturers of certain e-waste plastic parts (particular computer and cellular telephone parts) to take back the product at the end of its useful life. This approach at least accumulates larger volumes of e-waste in one location to which recycling processes may be applied in a more efficient manner. However, many problems attendant to the recycling of e-waste plastics still remain.